Wednesday, 8 December 2010

FT 270 cover, out now. UFO star of Bethlehem

Just a quick post as I have deadlines looming all over the place. Here is the cover to Fortean Times #270, the Xmas issue. There were initially some problems with the CMYK conversion as the RGB original was way out of gamut due to my reckless use of lens flares on the main lighting render. However, I think it came out ok in the end.

I am finding the new FT cover layout to be a bit of a challenge as it's so top heavy and increasingly difficult to come up with compositions that work for both the cover and full page. Maybe this just pushes you to be more creative? Dunno about that, but I was pretty happy with the way the composition worked out for this one. It was felt that the cover needed to be more of a Christmas card for the readers, which is why the subject is not really representative of the feature article as a whole but just one element of it.

Working on this cover reminded me of junior school where I would be ‘volunteered’ to paint the Christmas themed frieze on the classroom wall every year during my lunch hour. I would be stuck inside painting silhouettes of wise men, palm trees, blah blah, while everyone else was outside throwing snowballs with rocks in and getting ‘scrubbed’. Yes, my schooldays were like the deleted scenes from Kes.

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About Me

I'm a freelance illustrator, working mainly in editorial and film. My stuff has appeared all over the place, although its a pretty fair bet that I'll have something in Fortean Times most months.
For the last few years I've also been working in film; doing storyboards, posters, concept art and generally poking my nose in where it's not wanted.
I've spent so long working from home I think I may be agoraphobic - hence the title of this blog. However, it is possible that I'm just incredibly lazy and/or an unsociable git.